Portraiture in Election Propaganda

There is a human element that is inescapable when crafting propaganda. The message of any propaganda campaign is created and pushed by humans, for humans. As such, one of the most persuasive images a propagandist can use is that of a human being. Doing so serves to make the message – and, by extension, the organization behind that message – more identifiable to the target audience, which in turn helps to make that audience more receptive to the agenda of the propagandist. One of the best times to illustrate this phenomenon, perhaps even more so than during a war, is during an election. As candidates for public office seek to garner support from the electorate, they must work hard to humanize themselves; if they fail to do so, then there is a strong probability that the voters will flock to the other side. To this end, organizations and individuals have used human likenesses in election propaganda for decades, both in Europe and in the United States. The Nazi party did so in the German elections of 1932 and 1933, ultimately succeeding in achieving a position of power; in a similar manner, elements sympathetic to then-Senator Barack Obama used his face on a now-famous poster in his successful bid for the presidency in 2008, and in 2016, elements sympathetic to Senator Bernie Sanders used his likeness in crafting a parodic piece of campaign propaganda.

In a poster entitled We’re Voting National Socialist, published during the election of 1932,the young Nazi party hoped to persuade an outright majority of German voters to vote for it (Jensen 2016). This would give the party a majority of seats in the German parliament, thereby granting it control of the government and allowing it to dictate policy. Perhaps the most striking feature of this poster is the collection of human likenesses found on it. The “awoken” German worker is shown standing tall and proud, looking down upon several other individuals who presumably hold different ideologies from him (Jensen 2016). By depicting the idealized German worker in this way, the Nazis hoped to create an image of themselves with which the average German voter could identify, thereby convincing that voter to cast a ballot for them. In addition, the stark contrast between the idealized worker and his Communist and Jewish opponents – depicted as shorter and weaker – served to create the classic “Us vs. Them” mentality that often appears during an election cycle (Jensen 2016). This sense of opposition would likely have been more difficult to foster if the Nazis had not used human likenesses for this poster.

The very next year, a special election was called, and the Nazis brought to bear yet more posters in the hopes of gaining their long-sought majority in the German parliament. One such poster is called The Reich Will Never Be Destroyed. Like We’re Voting National Socialist, this poster relied heavily upon depicting human beings in order to push its message. A key difference, however, is that in this poster, the Nazis chose to depict recognizable individuals, rather than generic, idealized or stereotyped people. This poster shows then-Chancellor Adolf Hitler and then-President Paul von Hindenburg, a hero of World War I, looking in a determined manner at the camera (Skoog 2016). The expressions on their faces telegraph a sense of power and a willingness to do whatever it takes to restore Germany to its former glory. Because both men seem to be looking directly out of the poster, there is a sense that they are staring into the soul of the viewer, which could in turn foster a sense that Hitler and Hindenburg knew exactly what the average German voter wanted from the government. That sense would then have helped the voter to identify more easily with the two men and the Nazi party, thereby convincing the voter to cast their ballot for the Nazi party. Once again, the Nazis’ use of human likenesses played to their advantage, helping them to more effectively push their message than other sorts of images.

In the United States, we are often loathe to acknowledge any sort of similarity that might exist between our society and institutions and those of states with which we contested, whether that struggle was a military or ideological one. Nevertheless, the famous Hope poster of 2008 bears some striking parallels to The Reich Will Never Be Destroyed. Hope, created during the 2008 presidential election, depicts then-Senator Barack Obama in a striking pose, looking thoughtfully at a spot somewhere above the “camera” (Lindley 2016). This depiction of a key candidate is tactically similar to that of the Nazi party in 1933, in that it uses an image of a well-known figure in order to help the electorate identify with that individual. In addition, the juxtaposition of the portrait with a campaign slogan serves to create an association in the mind of the typical voter between the candidate in question and the message conveyed by the slogan. A notable difference, however, is that in Hope, then-Senator Obama is not depicted in a strictly photographic manner; rather, his image is stylized, re-colored using red, white, and blue. This serves to create an additional layer of meaning: because the colors of the American flag are likewise red, white, and blue, the fact that Obama is colored as such helps to foster an association between the man himself and a key symbol for the American state, thereby making him seem all the more patriotic (Lindley 2016). It is worth noting that “HOPE” was not the only slogan used on posters of this sort (Lindley 2016); nevertheless, the effect was the same. Without Obama’s face on the piece, however, it is doubtful that it would have been nearly as effective at convincing the American people to elect him president.

During the contentious election of 2016, supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders produced various forms of propaganda, hoping to convince the rest of the American electorate to vote for him. One such piece is a parody of a famous piece of Soviet propaganda, entitled Comrade Sanders Cleanses the Earth from Scum (Jensen 2016). The original version depicts Vladimir Lenin holding a broom and sweeping away monarchs and capitalists; this parody is largely the same, with the exception that Lenin’s face has been replaced with that of Sanders (Jensen 2016). Once more, the propagandist’s use of human likenesses serves to enhance the effectiveness of the piece by helping the audience to more easily identify with the individual in question and the cause for which that person stands. Somebody seeing Sanders in the act of “cleansing the Earth from scum” might be more easily convinced to support his agenda and vote for him. In addition, this piece blends the motifs of depicting a recognizable individual and showing stereotyped people in an effort to foster an “Us vs. Them” mentality, not unlike the other pieces that have been examined so far. Thus it seems that once again, the use of human likenesses proved to enhance the effectiveness of the propaganda in question.

We are all human beings; as such, it is easy for us to identify with other humans. A good propagandist knows how to take advantage of this, using images of human beings in order to foster a greater identification on the part of the target audience with the message and organization the propagandist is seeking to push. Elections provide one of the best environments in which to observe this phenomenon in action; indeed, it is one that has been in use since at least the 1930s. While the United States is generally unwilling to acknowledge any similarities that exist between its own methodology and those of its historical enemies, a close examination reveals that it has used these tactics in a manner not dissimilar from the Nazi party and the Bolsheviks.